Rayon Sports head coach Djuma Masudi has praised his team’s performance after eliminating rivals Police FC from the Peace Cup at the quarter-final stage on a 6-1 goal aggregate.

The title holders, who had won the first leg 2-0 on Sunday, went on to complete the job in style winning the second leg 4-1 on Wednesday at Kigali Stadium.

Dominique Savio Nshuti, Shassir Nahimana’s brace and Patrick Umwungeri’s own goal were enough to hand the league champions a comfortable aggregate win while striker Dany Usengimana netted the consolation goal for Innocent Seninga’s team.

"I gave my players two instructions, to defend together and attack together as a team and they did that perfectly well. I am happy for them but we still have a lot of work to do in the semifinals,” Masudi told Times Sport.

He noted that, "We needed an early goal and thankfully we got it, and it helped to calm down the players, who went on to cause Police all sorts of problems. I told the players that we need play our normal game and that is what we did.”

In the semi-finals, Rayon Sports will face Espoir, who knocked out Marines FC on an away goals rule after both sides settled for a goalless draw in Rusizi on Wednesday while the first leg ended 1-1 in Rubavu.

His counterpart, Innocent Seninga admitted that his team failed to cope with Rayon Sports’ ruthless attack saying that, "Overall, we lost to the better team.”

"We learned a lot from the two games. One of the things I learnt is that we need more players in the defense and maybe we will be better next season, Rayon Sports were by far the better team over the two legs and they deserve to go through,” he stated.

Police FC also ended the game with ten players following the sending off of midfielder Muhammed Mushimiyimana five minutes into the second half for verbally insulting the referee.

The semi-final round is slated for June 28 while the final is due on July 4. The eventual winner will represent Rwanda in the 2018 CAF Confederation Cup.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw